So, almost a month ago, my appendix was removed in the middle of the night. Turns out, there were at least four appendectomies performed in the emergency room in a twelve-hour span—including one on a friend. How crazy is that? I have no idea if appendicitis is that common or if it was a fluke. But since so many people have asked, here’s the story. To start WAY back in the beginning, I had some weird stomach...

I cannot even believe that we got married FIFTEEN years ago. It’s been fifteen years since we had a fun rehearsal dinner at the Lodge…fifteen years since I had to walk outside, then back inside to use the bathroom in our house…fifteen years since our amazing party at Liberty Hall that grandma talked about for years…fifteen years since I ran over my entire bag of nail polish because someone...

I totally meant to post this LAST week and then, big surprise, I got distracted by something else and never came back to it…story of my life. Last Sunday (meaning the Sunday before last!) was a beautiful day for a birthday party in the park. Sweet Silas turned one and we helped celebrate with festivities at Watson Park, lovingly referred to by the locals as the train park because of the historic locomotive...

Last night at the Homecoming pep rally, a couple of our friends mentioned a Touch-a-Truck event that was happening today at a local church just outside town. Since Cooper loves all things transportation right now, and since he’s unfailingly awake at the crack of dawn—HOW is my child a morning person?—I thought it might be fun to check out. We weren’t disappointed. There were at least 20 different trucks...

Nights like tonight make me even more happy that we live within close walking distance of downtown. The annual KU Homecoming parade was tonight and started mere blocks from our house. Friends and their kids met us here (easy parking!) and we walked through the chaos of South Park to find a good parade-watching spot. On our way, we saw Baby Jay, Big Jay and one of Cooper’s teacher aides from school....

We cook dinner at home a lot—a lot more now that we have a child, and a lot earlier in the evening than we used to— but our family still loves to go out to restaurants. No potential toddler drama is going to stop that from happening. (Side note: big believer over here in incorporating the kid into the family activities instead of rearranging our lives around the whims of a toddler. Selfish? I prefer to think that...

At “two half,” as my kiddo says, he has no baby book—despite my months-long, crazy-pregnant-lady obsession over finding just the “right” book, the one I eventually settled on remains nearly empty—and I’ve sporadically jotted down funny quotes and important milestones in three different iPhone apps, Google calendar and a quote book that remains one of my favorite gifts to date (thanks...

Well, I DO, except I’m not supposed to eat it right now because of the braces currently inhibiting my enjoyment of certain foods. (I said “not supposed to.” Yes, you can interpret that to mean that I’ve snuck a few bites here and there when I couldn’t resist, like when a friend I hadn’t seen in over a year came to town for a visit, or when we visited my parents and my dad made...

Cooper’s Caterpillar class went on their spring field trip last month to one of our favorite places in Lawrence: PetWorld. Oh my goodness does this boy love that place. So many things to see- hamsters and fish and bunnies and giant tortoises and even a Chinese water dragon! We’ve gone to PetWorld many times on Saturdays for Storytime Live!, where a staff member reads a story about an animal to the kids...

Everyone says Cooper is Dave’s mini-me, but there’s one area where he takes after me: he’s a chatterbox. We’ve hit the stage where new words come out of his mouth every day, and this weekend he said so many funny things that I can’t not write them down. (My dear friend Becki gave me the most awesome gift at Christmas: a book to write kids’ quotes in. And I’m doing that, but...